CVB elects Schilling as interim president

Chairman Dennis Schilling said he’s going to try to be the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau’s interim president Wednesday.

Board member Don Clark nominated Schilling, and board members present agreed 8-0 to appoint Schilling as former President and Chief Executive Officer Char Beltran’s replacement. Beltran resigned from the position Oct. 12, citing various disagreements with board members. Voting board members Dante Marinelli, Judy Selberg, Elizabeth Marr, Vern Porter and Dean Barlow were not present for the meeting.

“I didn’t expect (the nomination),” Schilling said. “There was a few that wanted me to do it after the position came open. I’m going to put in the number of hours needed to keep the place going in a maintenance mode.”

Schilling said he would continue as the interim CEO until the board elects a permanent president/CEO. He added that he would only be able to work in a limited capacity and for the short term.

“I can do it for two or three hours a day but if the job depends on more hours than are available to me, that is something that will need to go before the board,” Schilling said. “If it got to be a six to eight hour a day job I’d probably go back to the board and ask for consideration of compensation.”

The CVB board is required to approve any possible monetary changes during its regular meeting, according to CVB Director of Operations Coleen Pruyn. Schilling said he does not expect to ask for any compensation.

“If it happened I wouldn’t for a higher salary,” he said. “I would ask for a little bit of money for expenses but at this time I don’t anticipate asking the CVB for anything additional.”

Schilling said he also anticipated difficulties because of a vacant Leisure Product Development position that has been vacant since a resignation in early September.

“The resignation of an employee has left a bit of a hole. There was some effort that the employee was doing,” he said. “(The employee’s) job is being spread around to other staff members right now but not everything is getting done. We will probably go ahead and create a job notice next week and see how the performance of the rest of the staff goes.”

Schilling said the position was not originally filled because Beltran was in charge of the hiring process.

“It was Ms. Beltran’s responsibility to do that,” he said. “I don’t find any evidence that she started that recruiting process.”

Beltran said she submitted notices to the board about the open position and felt it needed to be changed.

“The position that we had was not serving the CVB,” Beltran said. “It needed to be updated to add a lot of technology, and I rewrote the job description and provided it to the board but I don’t think they did anything with it. … I think an effective CVB would be understanding of that.”

The board agreed to start a new search committee for a new president/CEO. Vice chairwoman Carolyn Bruce agreed to head the committee, adding that it might be another five months before a permanent replacement is hired.

“If we’re going based on how long it took us the last time, we’re looking at about five months,” she said. “I would like to get it done faster, get applications from all over the country and meet with the committee at least once a week.”

Schilling said he would send notices to other members of the board for additional members to the search committee.

“I want to get that committee going as soon as possible,” he said. “I’d love to see someone hired in permanently in less than five months, and I’m hoping it could be done in about three months but we’ll see.”

You can contact the reporter at nbruttell@havasunews.com.